The Boxer
by Rubber-duckiesofdoom
Summary: Ron leaeves home to find himself. Musings set to song 'The Boxer'


**Disclaimer**: I do not own the characters, the song, or a life. I do own the plot, so kindly don't steal it!

**The Boxer – a song fic**

_I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told._

Ron Weasley. Who is he? Oh yeah – the kid next to Harry Potter. Hermione Granger – you know, the smart girl-'s boyfriend. The sidekick. The poor kid. The scruffy tall guy. But who's Ron Weasley? Who is he actually? Nobody knows.

_I have squandered my resistance,  
For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises._

I'm promised fame. I'm promised a name. They all tell me I have a personality – that I'm my own man. Well then why doesn't anybody know who I am? Mumbles are all I get – mumbles of thanks, mumbles of promises, mumbles of love. But they're all mumbles. Mumbles are instead of real words – they are things spoken softly, unheard almost, in hopes that they'll be forgotten. In hopes that they won't be required to be kept.

_All lies and jest._

Well, of course. That's the real world, isn't it? Lies. Lies of the 'bad guys' loosing. Lies of inexistent money. Lies of love. Lies of everything. People say its hope, not a lie. Well then, why is it never true? I'll tell you. Because hope sparks reality. Lying is just a broken promise. Lying is just false words. Lying is what the world holds itself upon.

_  
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest._

I want to hear speak of Ron Weasley. I do. I hear from my family, my friends. I don't hear the reporters calling me Ron Westly or Sean Weasley. I don't see the magazines mentioning brilliant Hermione Granger and brave Harry Potter, but disregarding wimpy, poor, stupid Ron Weasley.

That's a lie, actually. I hear and see it all quite clearly, but I ignore it. It got to me only when I heard Harry and Ginny, softly murmuring about what to do about the article which wrote that Dean did some heroism that I did. I dreaded their sympathy, so chose to leave their open arms and stay in my own bubble, far away from their hurt eyes.__

When I left my home and my family I was no more than a boy,

I left home after school. I went to look for myself. That's what they said. That's what they used as an excuse. But I knew where I was. I was looking for a place where they didn't know me as the guy next to . I was looking for a place to make myself something. It wasn't as easy as it seemed.

_  
In the company of strangers,  
In the quiet of a railway station, runnin' scared._

I traveled by myself, sometimes. I sometimes traveled with large groups, or with only a few other people, too. They didn't ask about me, nor I of them. We were in the same boat – we kept to ourselves, afraid of hearing something that was too close to our own story for our liking.

I was scared though. I'll admit it. I had no idea where to start, or how to know when to end, or what it would look like. Would I create a completely different life for myself and never see my friends? Would I end up back home, wiser, older, more of a person? I was scared of what could, was, or wouldn't happen.

_  
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters,  
Where the ragged people go.  
Lookin' for the places, only they would know.  
_

I lived on the streets. Sometimes I could find a home to sleep in for my story. I was a ragged man. No longer a boy. It seemed that I had changed. I wanted to tell them my story, but I found I didn't know it. I wasn't a boy who followed his best friend to the lair of a dark lord and back. I wasn't the boy who made up morbid predictions to keep my teacher happy. I was a lonely man, who, as far as my hosts and I knew, had no-one.

_  
Lie-la-lie ..._

Asking only workman's wages I come lookin' for a job,  
But I get no offers,

When I felt that I might be somewhere I could call home, I tried to work. But nobody hired me. Perhaps my shady past, or my unsure future. I asked barely anything; just enough for some food, but nobody gave me anything. It was as if I was a rat on their floor, and they wanted me out. So out I went, and I would continue searching. It was like my life – when I was unwanted, I wouldn't put up a fight. I would leave, as Harry told me Fleur had once said, 'like zat' – it just took an angry bang on the table for me to get out.

_  
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue.  
I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome,  
I took some comfort there.  
Oooh la, la, la ...  
_

I did try to stay true to Hermione. I loved her. I still do. But when I met someone, anyone, willing to comfort me (in any way – I'm just a simple man. I'm not picky), I didn't turn her down. But as we would make love, I would pretend it was my beautiful Hermione lying in the bed, instead of some slut whose name I didn't even know. And I took comfort, knowing that Hermione was there. Because although she was not lying next to me, she was in my mind, haunting me day and night.

_  
And the years are rollin' by me.  
They are rockin' evenly.  
_

Snowy nights turned into warm springs, which turned into years. What more I counted with, I do not know. But when I would catch a glance of myself anywhere, I would be amazed at the man staring back with wide eyes. How many things I had seen since Hogwarts. How many time I had slept with woman pretending it was one who never knew I thought of her as more than 'one of the guys'. How much I have seen. But besides those moments, it all smoothly ran away. Time was nothing more than a lullaby to a drowsy toddler, something playing quietly and not disturbing anybody, far back in my head.

_I am older than I once was, and younger than I'll be.  
That's not unusual._

I'm not a teenager. I'm not the boy with a freckle that happened to look like dirt on my nose, anxiously awaiting the train that would take me to go to learn magic in a giant castle I had heard rumors of for my whole life. I wasn't the boy fighting people who, if gotten the chance, would kill me. But I wasn't the man I hoped to become – the man of wisdom. Knowledge. Strength. These had not yet come. I was somewhere in the middle, just standing back and watching life.

_  
It isn't strange,  
After changes upon changes, we are more or less the same.  
After changes, we are more or less the same.  
_

I see people like me every day. I can see the identical look on their faces, their worn yet hopeful eyes, and I wonder if they see that we are the same. Do they know my story? Do they have their own stories? I realize that, in truth, if we go through something together, no matter how different before, there will always be a carbon copy of the experience in our minds. Something to relate to, whether in the privacy of our minds or together.

_  
Lie-la-lie ..._

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone,  
Going home, where the New York City winters aren't bleedin' me.  
Leadin' me, to goin' home.

I want to go home. I do every night when I am lying in my bed, and the wave of nostalgia for my clashing orange room crashes over me. When I see a girl with bushy brown hair, or a woman reading a book. When I smell homemade apple pies.

The traveling has worn me down. I've been in fist fights; I've slept with more women than I can think of. I miss home. The warm hot chocolate on Christmas, my family. Playing with my cousins, gazing at Hermione without her knowing, longing for her to look up, maybe smile a bit. If I were to go home though, I would see what I've missed. And it would hurt too much.__

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade,  
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down,  


I am a fighter. Physically, mentally. Not only from school. I have fought for many things, about many things. I have fought without a cause. And anybody who bothers to look my way could tell. I limp a little, and though I have acquired some muscle, I have far too many scars to even be able to count. I am a marked man. Both in my mind, and on my body. It's as if I'm attracted to disaster. First, I make friends with Harry Potter, the boy who can't go a year without having some run in with a dark lord or a few of his minions, then I decide to leave a world of comfort and just start wondering with empty pockets.

_Or cut him 'til he cried out in his anger and his shame,_

It's not only a fear of what I've missed. I feel horrible. I feel ashamed. I've had years upon years to berate myself – I left them without a note. Without an explanation. I disappeared, and it was selfish – every bit of what I did. A pain I had never known is always with me, coming from my heart. The pain that I left such a wonderful life. Yet I can't take it back. It's like knocking down a bowl of soup. You can fix the bowl, but it won't be as stable, and the soup won't come back, ever. I could fix the family bond, spark a relationship with Hermione, but there would be nothing in common. We would have nothing together – it's been to long._  
_

_"I am leaving, I am leaving."  
But the fighter still remains.  
_

I've wanted to die so many times. I buy the poison. I hold the knife. But I can't. It seems that not only do I leave promises and turn them to faint whispers at home to my loved ones, but to myself. I stay, for whatever reason. And I think of what I can do tomorrow. I'm still looking, but I know some day, I'll turn around. I don't know when, but someday, I'll be done searching, and turn back. And maybe I can find my old life. And maybe I'll start a new one. But for now, I'll keep on fighting, keep on living.

_  
Lie-la-lie ..._

_**Fin**_

A/N: Hi! I hope you liked this. I'm trying to write song-fics for all of my favorite songs. The lyrics are easily found on the internet. I'm not sure if these are the true lyrics, and a few of them weren't on my version of the song, but I liked them, and anyhow, all of the lyric sites put them down differently, so I guess I'll just never know! I would appreciate reviews greatly!


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